Book Review: Campanelli: The Ping Tom Affair
Campanelli: The Ping Tom Affair. Frederick H. Crook. Amazon Digital Services LLC, June 30, 2013, Kindle, 83 pages.
Reviewed by Marssie Mencotti.
In Frederick H. Crook’s novella, Campanelli: The Ping Tom Affair, the year is 2109 when our main character, Chicago Chief of Detectives Frank Campanelli, is called to a double murder investigation in Ping Tom Park. Campanelli, who was blinded years before in a fire in New York, that also took the lives of his wife and child, manages his disability with the use of bionic eyes. These visual aids not only handle all of the functions of sight, but they also manage tracking and communications. While Campanelli’s use of visual technology assists his police work a great deal, it is his own intuition—sans technology—that proves to be his greatest asset to his police work.
Frank Campanelli is an interesting and richly complicated character.
He is an honest, hard-boiled, and hard working detective who chooses to reconcile his past in his own way. From his life in New York, he brings with him the way he likes to work—emotionlessly and efficiently. In his new city, he has already sussed out both the best forensics people in Chicago and a partner who is the envy of any detective, or just anyone needing a second in command who is smart and strong. This partner, whose name is Marcus Williams, is a genetically engineered ex-Navy Seal who is quiet, obedient, and military-like in his precision. Campanelli and Williams work hand in glove to solve crimes in this future dystopian Chicago where the unspoken desire of some residents is to relocate off-world to a utopian planet colony named Alethea. Campanelli is different than many, because he wants to stay in Chicago, on Earth. For him to do so, he must hold the line on crime in Chicago, thereby making safety on earth possible. Frank Campanelli is a rugged individual who is comfortable with his choices and his life and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He thinks that the decision to leave the planet is every person’s individual choice. This belief keeps him at personal odds with the establishment, but it doesn’t hamper him from doing his duty.
The story begins when the young son of a very powerful old Tong ruler is found dead with an unidentified second man. When Campanelli and Williams take on the case, the investigation seems to unfold in a routine manner, but then it winds its way through a side story of colorful characters in Chicago’s Chinatown: a Chicago Alderman and his family—who are making their escape off-world—and a run-down cafe that serves great food and friendship. These components resonate with a common theme throughout the novel, that those who remain behind on Earth are somehow different. The earthbound individuals wrestle with the lure of migration every day, and yet settle for the life they can glean from what was left behind on earth. Nearly everyone we meet is dealing with the issue of a dying society coping with its crumbling infrastructure. There’s hopelessness in every character that Crook reveals to us in the book. These individuals try to identify what makes a place “home” by how much chaos they can endure on their own planet, Earth.
Crook introduces Campanelli’s sometime bed partner, Tam, who is his on-again-off-again girlfriend. Tam, having to adapt to Campanelli’s crazy work schedule, emblemizes his ability to only commit to laws, principles, and pragmatism. Campanelli is not a man who is able to commit to the ideals associated with romance and love.
I love a good detective story told in a mysterious, sparsely populated, Edward Hopperesque night world, and Crook does a good job at this. For Campanelli, without his “eyes” the world is indeed very dark and dangerous. Crook tells a compelling tale of generations divided over the issue of emigration from Earth, and how those remaining cope with the tension of two competing worlds. We learn about a possible future of Chinese-American trade, advanced product development, and replications of vehicles and aircraft, all within the framework of criminal activity. Despite the events occurring almost a century in the future, the hierarchies of the Police Department, as well as its procedural processes, remain as they are today. Crook renders depressing glimpses of what the abandoned Chicago of 2109 would look like: fewer elevated trains, abandoned housing, and crumbling infrastructure.
There are a few things that I still want to know more about. How does Campanelli intuit information about his suspects rather than letting his special “eyes” do the work? For what purpose was Marcus Williams genetically engineered beyond his huge physique and physical prowess? Is he a man, machine, or both? What drives Campanelli except work and what is the spark that keeps him going? The reason I want to know more is that I want to become more invested in this detective and his partner on a reader-to-detective level. I believe that once a reader and a detective are bonded, the reader will seek out everything that the writer can write about that detective.
These detectives are beyond competent. In some ways they are extraordinary in their ability to assess every situation. They seem to teeter on the border of superheroes molding a new and safer future for the people who remain on Earth. I don’t want Crook to give them more foibles, but rather I would like them to commit more strongly to Earth’s future.
I enjoyed this selection for its metaphor about today’s divisiveness between the rich and the poor, how our civil service employees forge ahead with their jobs despite dwindling resources, while the rich buy the safety of far away, walled-off communities away from the poor and homeless. Detectives Campanelli and Williams believe strongly that bad people can be contained in prisons and they hold that line throughout this exciting film noir adventure.